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He said the loss has not been determined but included the three buildings and everything inside, which included three vehicles, specialized equipment and material that would have been used in contracting work.

"They were owned by the cabbage king of the East Coast, " Woodford claimed.

"Cabbages would have been trimmed and stored in racks. He bought them as futures. Bought them from area farmers in the fall, sold them in New York City in the spring."

The cabbage businessman would have been Alexander Mitchell, an Apulia Station resident who, according to the files of the Onondaga Historical Association, shipped from Apulia Station more Danish ballhead cabbage than any other shipping point in the United States.

Mitchell retired in 1922 after 25 years in the business.

Beulah Kelley, a 92-year-old former school teacher in Apulia Station, said the cabbage business was important to area farmers. Her husband ran the railroad depot - now owned by Woodford - and grew cabbages on the side.

Charles Shea, 72, recalled his family dairy farm used cabbages as the cash crop that got the taxes paid and the family through winters.

The heyday of Apulia Station probably was in the late 1800s.

In the mid-1850s, it was called Summit Station because it was the high point on the railroad line. Nearby was Apulia - now called Old Apulia by local residents.

Apulia Station became a stop on the railroad line, Shea said, because the local wood-cutters supplied wood for its fuel. In addition to Mitchell's produce, there was a demand for milk and potatos and so a creamery was built. It too is now part of the Woodford complex.

In 1868, a buggy factory opened. In the 1860s and 1870s, the Salisbury cheese factory made about 175 to 200 tons of cheese a year in Apulia Station. In 1971, a sawmill opened - leading a few years later to the opening nearby of the Apulia Station Chair Factory. It turned out 33,000 chairs a year.

It's unclear when Apulia Station began to go downhill but, by World War II, the cabbage houses had become cattle barns and the Apulia auctions of cattle were known countywide.

In 1962, the Woodford brothers opened for business in one of the buildings of their present complex. They grew rapidly.

They bought the Borden creamery, then the cattle barns, then a main office on Route 80 that once was a dance hall for Apulia Station residents, and finally the old train depot which had closed in 1956.

Woodford, who Wednesday said he would rebuild some sort of storage buildings, talked about the chair factory and other thriving businesses that have gone from Apulia Station. "This, " he said, pointing to the pile of charred wood and metal, "is one more thing that's gone out of it."